


I Take Great Pleasure in Recommending....

by NotQuiteHydePark



Category: New Mutants (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Cooking, Gen, Magic-Users, School, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 09:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20618438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: Maybe don't read unless you're a teacher?





	I Take Great Pleasure in Recommending....

The Xavier School trains superheroes to superhero, yes, and it trains young mutants in the safe use of our powers, and it provides needed refuges and safe spaces to mutants who don't feel safe at home, and it provides constant work for demolition and reconstruction specialists, engineers, and local architects who specialise in quick rebuilds, but it's also, on top of all that, a school. 

And _that_ means the gifted youngsters who attend it, whether or not they graduate (and whether or not they design graduation costumes), sometimes apply to other institutions, and sometimes to jobs that aren't superhero-ing. Which means we have to write on their behalf.

Kitty has written, and signed, and sealed, at least six letters this morning. She's on her seventh, about a great kid who's still developing her technopathy, which took a while to control: she needs loud music playing in order to hear one machine, instead of all the machines, and she only took off once she got the right headphones. "To the admissions committee of the Rochester Institute of Technology: I am very pleased to recommend..." she begins. Her fingers hurt. She believes in this kid. She's tired.

"Illyana," she asks. There are five of them in the big office right now (the small one got blown up by Sentinels last week). "How many do you have left that are due this week?"

"Gambit all done!" Remy says. "Gambit ready to take de faculty out on de town. Has anybody seen my Anna Marie? " Usually there's only one or two applying to culinary schools or food apprenticeships, which are Remy's department; this year there are seven, including a kid whose touch makes everything sour. Good thing kombucha's not out of style yet. 

"I know you're done," Kitty answers. "I wasn't asking you."

Illyana raises her hand. She's holding a Russian novel. "I've been done since teatime," she tells Kitty. "I really don't know what's taking you so long."

"Stop teasing me," Kitty says, though really that's the last thing she wants to stop. Illyana had at least as many recs as Kitty this fall: three kids are serious candidates for Cooper Union College of Sorcery, and one can recite nearly all of Anna Akhmatova. Also there are two fencers, and Kurt's on assignment, so Illyana's been training them too. "How did you get it all done?"

"Take a look." Magik gestures broadly, showing the Cajun thief and the University of Chicago graduate what's happening in a small, bright space in Limbo: ten eight-armed demons, each the size of a kitten, each in a different colour of the rainbow, are typing on typewriters and signing the finished pages with quill pens. "All recommendations say the same thing anyway, so I've just asked my, um, junior colleagues to do it."

"You wouldn't do that to humans or mutants, would you?" Kitty confirms.

"Of course not," Illyana says. "But what good is it being the ruler of Limbo if I don't get out of this sort of thing?"

"You've tried this before, roomie," Kitty says. "I remember how that worked out. Can we see one of those recommendations before they go in the mail here on Earth?"

Illyana reaches through the portal and brings back one of the signed, un-folded pages. Kitty and Illyana together start reading. "To the most illustrious masters of evil," it begins. "I take great pleasure in recommending my student Victor Borkowski for ten thousand years of infernal torment, followed by ascension to the role of Cruel Master of the Toxic Infinite Clouds, where he shall hang upside down and direct the gradual psychic destruction of those creatures unfortunate enough to regard him as a peer. Though he has not a speck of cruelty in him so far, I am absolutely certain that he can learn to torment his inferiors..."

"I take it this isn't the letter Anole was expecting," Kitty says drily. "Nor does this seem right: 'I am happy to tell you that Benjamin Deeds has shown, in his three years at our school, a magisterial potential for almost infinite deception and evil: I can easily envision him with talons, bat-wings, and a vat of hot oil."

"Touché," Illyana says. "Guess I'll be here for a while. Also, I'll need that list of names back." She speaks in an eldritch language into the portal and the coloured demons scatter; it closes, and a printed page flies out. Illyana picks up the page and sits down at her laptop.

"Gambit gonna go out on de town without you!" Remy says.

"That's right: I'll wait up for you," Kitty tells Magik. "There's a new Ted Chiang book anyway." She phases through her purse to retrieve the novel. "Wait, is someone having a fistfight downstairs? I'll go check."

There are more desks downstairs in the living quarters, and there's definitely a sound like bare-knuckle boxing, repeated, identically, over and over. Oof. Pow. Oof. Oof. 

By the time Kitty gets to where she can see it, though, the sounds and the fighting make sense. There's Jamie Madrox, and Jamie Madrox, and Jamie Madrox, and Jamie Madrox, each with a laptop, each with a pen in his hand. The last Jamie in line waves to Kitty. "I'm afraid we'll be a while," he says. "But I promise, we're working as fast as we can."


End file.
